The people of Pompeii believed that if there was an earthquake or if the crops failed to produce, it was caused by an angry god. This is when they began to sacrifice animals to please the gods; if only that would have saved them. For as long as the modern persons of the world have known about what happened at Pompeii, it has been believed that they suffocated to death choking on the volcanic ash, pumicite, and the gas from the pumice rocks. There are casts of the bodies that support this claim, such as some with curled toes that is now seen as a reaction when suffocating. But if they indeed suffocated, why were there more natural scenes? For example the photo below is of a young boy who was found next to a man standing, and a woman with a child seated on her lap. If you look closely to the face of the boy, he does not seem in pain. Also, why would archaeologists have found such a pristine scene that seemed like it would be a nice family photo, if they suffocated to death. In fact, most of the bodies that were found were in natural positions, from kneeling to their face in their hands. So how did the entire population of Pompeii die? They were flash heated to death.

In other words they were burned to death very fast. Mount Vesuvius was only 6 miles away from the city of Pompeii. To give you an idea how close that was, Lower Manhattan in New York is only 9 miles away from Upper Manhattan. A volcanic eruption from a volcano of Vesuvius' size, an eruption from any sized volcano, puts out hot gas; Volcanologists call these surges. On the day Pompeii experienced this, Vesuvius put out 4 surges, one weaker than the next, but all it needed was on surge. Volcanologist Mastrolorenzo stated “temperatures outdoors—and indoors—rose up to 300°C [570°F] and more, enough to kill hundreds of people in a fraction of a second," What is more, is when the bones of the Vesuvius victims were compared to modern day human bones that were heated, they cracked in almost the say way. In this new study they have paid more attention to the environment. Indeed the evidence of this proves that the people of Pompeii were exposed t extreme heat. Wood objects were charred and silverware was melted (which happens at 480 degrees Fahrenheit). To give you an example of how far the study of this site has come, the following is part of a report I wrote in '09. “It started at about one o’clock, August of 79 A.D. At this time it was lunch for the people of Pompeii. That’s when they heard a loud sound. Mt. Vesuvius had erupted. From it came ash and volcanic stone that stretched for miles. It started out as a light drizzle of ash, but before long, the people could not even see one foot in front of them. The debris of the volcano began to accumulate “at the rate of six inches the hour.” It may not seem like a lot, but in time, as it was falling on the houses of citizens, the weight of the ash became to great and caused the roofs to come crashing down. It wasn’t before long that the entire city was covered in 12 inches of debris. At 6:30 am of August the 25th the city of Pompeii was filled with poisonous gas suffocating, killing, all of its people.” I wrote this one year before we really began to look at what really did happen. What is really amazing is that they died in the fraction of a second. I believe any longer and we would not have been left with the body casts. For example, when cremating a dead body the temperature of 1400 degrees is needed, but kept at a constant for 2 1/2 hours. The ash and heat that happened to Pompeii was for 8 1/2 hours. Also, if the bodies were not killed (there is no other way of saying it), in half a second, they would have indeed suffered. Although, even if many people were killed, the eruption could have been a blessing in disguise for those who found it. If Pompeii didn’t experience that disaster, would any of its artifacts, any of its traditions, have lasted the test of time? I don’t think the majority of what was preserved would have made it. In spite of this terrible tragedy, it gave us a glimpse into the past. Into the past that was Pompeii.

“A pocket full of posies,Ashes!Ashes!We all fall down” I am sure that you have heard small children singing this, or maybe even you sang this growing up. The best part was when you fell down at the end. That said, it is said that this rhyme actually as a very dark origin. Urban legend has it that children during the black plague would sing this tune when they would see the carriage filled with bodies dead from the plague. But is this true? If we look closely at the lyrics, it is safe to assume that there must be a ring around a red bump or blister. The next line with the posies; posies are a very fragrant flower that was believed if smelled it would protect the sniffer from contracting a disease that they then believed were carried by a foul smell. The “Ashes! Ashes!” most likely refers to the burning of the bodies to keep the plague from spreading even in death. But why does the “We all fall down” come at the end? Was it to predict that the rest of the population would die? Or, as many folklorists believe, was that just a curtsy. In the flowing I will examine the different plagues and see if any of them match these lyrics. First up is the is the most famous, but the less deadly, bubonic plague. I know it is called the Black Death, but the next two are far worse. That said, this specific plague did the most damage; most of the population of Europe, 30%-60% dead, in only 7 years. That 30 to 60 percent translates to 75 to 200 million of Europeans in the late 1340's to the mid 1350's were dead. This plague has been traced back through Asia where the infected rats came from through way of boat travel to Europe. Now one of the symptoms of the black death were the appearance of buboes, swollen lymph glands. You must be thinking, “Ah-ha! The ring around the rosie!” but there were no rings around these buboes, and these were not rosie, or any form of red. If anything they started off looking like a skin coloured bump, but as the plague progressed it would either ooze pus and bleed if popped, or it would turn black. The reason it would turn black is because the plague made that area of skin die, so it would rot. People with noticeable buboes would, of course, be outcast because coming in physical contact with this person would most likely infect that person. This psychical contact is the main reason that this plague did so much damage. It came to Europe in the winter, and in the winter families would huddle together for body heat; but if just one member had the black plague, it was not long before the rest of the family had it too. Although, it did no just start out as buboes, some of the first symptoms included headaches, vomiting, and aching joints. It sounds like the flu at first, but once the person manifested the buboes, the people who were treating the infected person already, most likely, already had contracted the black plague.

Next I will address the less well known pneumonic plague. The perpetrator for this plague is a bacteria named Yersinia pestis. Remember how I started talking about the black plague and called it the less deadly? This is why, the pneumonic plague has a mortality rate of 90 to 95 percent. This means that if it were to hit a hugely populated area, everyone in the area has a 10 to 5 percent chance of living. Another reason, and I believe the main reason, this one is so prevalent is because unlike the bubonic plague which you have to be in contact with an infected person, this one travels by air. It infects the lungs, and with this infection in the lungs one of the first signs of the infected person is the coughing up of blood. Even when they do not cough up blood their saliva is either very water or just bloody. Other early symptoms are fever, headache, weak limbs, similar to those of the black plague. But unlike the black plague in which infected persons die within eight days, persons infected with the pneumonic plague have less than 2 days.

The last plague I will speak of is the most terrifying, but thankfully, contracting it is very rare. This plague is called the septicemic plague. The reason I call it the most terrifying even though it is not the most common, the mortality rate for this one is 99 to 100 percent; this means that those with it have 1 to 0 percent chance of living. Septicemic plague is sort of an evolved form of the pneumonic plague because the septicemic plague in infects the blood. Now the septicemic plague can lead to the pneumonic one if it spreads to the lung tissue, but the pneumonic plague cannot lead to the septicemic one. This is why the septicemic plague is so rare; a very low percentage of persons with pneumonic plague lead to the septicemic plague. Although, with the rise of modern medicine the mortality rate drops drastically from 99/100 percent to 4/15 percent. That said, that is only if it is caught quickly, if not the infected person has about or less than 24 hours to live. Symptoms in humans include, but not limited to, bleeding under skin (which leads to purple areas of the skin), diarrhea, organ failure, and gangrene (which would cause the extremities to turn black). If you realized, I said “in humans,” the reason being is that animals also can contract the septicemic plague. Their symptoms include, and again but not limited to, depression, vomiting, fever, and perhaps coma. Even though these are the symptoms for both humans and animals, the subject may die before any of them are apparent.

Europe, the world, has been attacked by many a plague, but none that seem to show likeness to the “Ring Around the Rosie” rhyme; at least one of the ones which I had just addressed. I do not mean to make you paranoid, reader, but if you ever to venture to Europe or Asia, try not to venture too deep as you may encounter a person or an animal infected. In fact just going into your backyard maybe dangerous; reason being is because rats, squirrels, even rabbits may be a carrier of the septicemic plague. So...feel free to venture! But do not get out of hand or you might catch a plague...or just influenza, which has a few plague symptoms but of which you will most likely recover from and survive. Please feel free to leave me a comment either about this blog or on an anthropological subject you would like me to cover.

Body snatcher, grave robbers; even though these two sound totally different there is one of two things they are after; either the belongs of the dead or the dead body itself. When it comes to the belongs being robbed we have all heard of people who have robbed the tombs of mummies, or just digging up the rich to take the jewels they were buried in. Now, that is all interesting, but I, being a budding physical anthropologist, am more interested in the why people steal the actual dead bodies. Body snatching has been around for centuries, from a few ancient Romans who used body parts for witchcraft, to modern day body snatching. Although, now a days illegal body snatching does not happen that often, there is usually a legal run around to get a body exhumed for the use of science. It was not always legal though. When the Catholic church came into power, they prohibited any sort of desecration of the body; living or dead. This is why some body snatchers sold their “prey” to doctors so that they may educated their students about anatomy, but sometimes the doctors and students themselves were the body snatchers. Even Leonardo da Vinci had to rob a grave or two to make several drawings...an example of one of the drawings below.

Although that form of body snatching is “for a good cause,” there were many that were not. One was using the grave. In the past many families did not have enough money for a casket. So what they would do they would dig up a freshly dug grave, take the body of the buried person, and placed the body they wanted to bury in. These people would either sell the body or if they were really poor, burn it for heat. But not all bodies that were buried were dead. Before the dawn of modern science and medicine, a few people were buried alive. This lead to the creation of several methods to have the person who is buried to let the people outside to know they were alive. But there was a story of a woman by the name of Margaret Erskine who was buried alive, but was unintentionally saved by her grave robber. The man who intended to take the jewels she was buried with. Actually, this name was said to be the undertaker himself. He buried her in a shallow grave to make the robbery easier for him later on in the night. But as he was cutting off one of her fingers to take the ring on it, she woke up. Now, if it was the dead of night and you were with someone you believed dead and they came back to life, what would you do? Run, yes? Yes. That is exactly was the grave robber did. I have included a illustration titled “Grave Robber Flees from a Corpse That Has Come to Life” below. If there is anything I want you to take away from this blog entry is to please get legal permission before digging up a body, or you may have a run in with a body come back to life. Please feel free to leave me a comment either about this blog or on an anthropological subject you would like me to cover.

Mummification has been popularized by modern media through movies, television shows, even games. But how does mummification done? Sure you can cite what was seen and said in “The Mummy” movie, although it is just a movie and as such there are many false facts. In this blog I will discuss the ancient holy ritual of mummification. First of all, why did the ancient Egyptian's go through mummification. The reason for it was because they believed that life was just a preparation for death and the after life. This is why in tombs with mummy's they had their personal belongings along with things that would help them in the underworld to get to the afterlife. It is because of inscriptions and hieroglyphs that we are able to know so much about ancient Egyptian culture. Almost everything we know about ancient Egypt comes from the life after death. And the reason they mummified the pharaohs is because if the body needs to get up again, it has to be preserved. No one really knows how the ancient Egyptian's came up with mummification, but the theory is that they saw it a lot. Not man made mummification’s, but naturally occurring ones. When you live in a country where most of it is dry and sandy, it is very easy to get mummified by the elements. It would have been very easy for the ancient Egyptian's to put their pharaoh out into the sand, but they could not. Reason being is that the pharaoh was a god on earth for them. For example, the person who was in charge of making the incisions (can any body guess what they cut with? That is right! They used sharpened obsidian) on the body had stone thrown at them because it was against the ancient Egyptian religion to defile the body; nevertheless a body of a god. Now the method of removing the brain has simplified as to just “sticking a red hot poker up the nose, scramble things around a bit, and rip it all through your nostrils,” but it is more complicated that that. First they had to break the bone that is in between the nostrils and the brain. After doing that they had the head upside down and poured hot tree sap into the cranium through the nose. Now they stick a poker into the head to spin the sap and the brain around, this made the next step easier; the actual removal of the brain. This one took some time. They had to put a white cloth into it and kept doing it til everything was out an the last cloth came out white. The removal of the organs was much easier but this one took days to get the body ready for mummification. Of course, a dead body in the hot temperatures of Egypt would surely smell, this is why mummification took place in a tent. Back to the internal organs. As I said the removal of organs was easier; after removed they were placed in canopic jars. These jars had the heads of different gods to protect the organ that was put into it. Hapy got the lungs, Duamutef the stomach, Qebehsenuef the intestines, and Imset the liver. (examples below) You must be wondering, who got the heart? No one did, the heart was the only organ not removed; it was believed the organ that you thought with was the heart, and the pharaoh needed thought to get trough the underworld. When abdominal cavity was empty It was washed with Plamwine.

After the organs were removed, they placed many packs of natrin (sodium carbonate, and sodium bicarbonate, and sodium chloride) into them to help dry out the body. When they did that they would proceed to covering the entire body with natrin. It took 35 days for a mummy to look like, well, a mummy. For those 35 days they would leave it alone, only having priests come by to “feed the soul,” after those 35 days there was just enough moisture left in the body to bed the arms across the chest. All that was left was to wrap it, of which they used linen, and in between certain levels of it they would leave charms that would help the pharaoh in the after life. Then into the first anthropoid sarcophagus, made of wood, it went. I say first because there were several, one going into the other, similar to nesting dolls. The one on the top had a likeness to who was buried in it, a funeral mask of sort. And this top one had the heaviest of all the lids that come after it. This is why, you need not worry of mummies coming back from the dead, if they did, they would have to spend the rest of their “life” under a heavy lid. Please feel free to leave me a comment either about this blog or on an anthropological subject you would like me to cover.